I was laying on a massage table while getting energy healing done. The energy healer sweetly whispered in my ear, “Just because your mother has hypothyroidism doesn’t mean you have to.” She said it so confidently that I believed her despite everything else I had been taught about genetics.

I feel that experience was an aid in my healing. Since then I have discovered nearly 200 stories of people who healed beyond what their doctors expected. Some were even given a few months or a few hours to live, yet I met them years later when they were fully healthy.

With finding so many miraculous healing stories when they weren’t common knowledge, I felt it important to put all the stories in one book to help people see their potential to overcome disease and live a happy life. I wanted to know the keys of what they each did to heal so I started interviewing all kinds of health and healing experts for my book Healing Happens: Stories of Healing Against All Odds....

I am going to guess you probably want to live a fulfilling life. One of the key success strategies revealed through the interviews for my book Healing Happens: Stories of Healing Against All Odds is focusing on your reason to live, which has helped many overcome fatal pronouncements. As a scientist I like to think when the force of the reason to live is greater than the strength of a disease, the reason to live will win. In another sense, I believe every time we shy away from our true purpose a piece of us dies inside. It takes not only following the vision but also envisioning the full potential of your life. The more you can see that true vision, the better your life will become.

Mamie-Jean Lamley kept an attitude of “cancer does not equal death” to help herself stay positive and survive cancer because she was determined to raise her three kids.

Dr. Bernie Siegel has hundreds of stories of patients who survived terminal prognoses because they simply focused on...

A few months ago I attended a breakthrough program called Enlightened Warrior Training Camp where we were put to the test to conquer fears. For many people it is filled with the most difficult things they have ever done. For me it was not the most challenging things I have done but one of the most transformative. What has been one of the most challenging things was finishing the first draft of the manuscript of my book Healing Happens: Stories of Healing Against All Odds.

I have ski dived out of planes, bungee jumped off of bridges, backpacked in the woods by myself with bears, and traveled around the world solo, and this was harder. Since books take so long to put together, it has been more like an extended Warrior Camp. My book is about exceeding limitations and that is exactly what I have had to do to get this far.

“I am a Warrior…I am willing to do what’s ‘Hard’.”

I remember as a child telling my mother I wanted to write an autobiography...

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.”—Eckhart Tolle

This is an excerpt from an interview for the book Healing Happens: Stories of Healing Against All Odds.

Sam Shelley’s story is of a man plagued by multiple sclerosis, bipolar disorder, and suicidal tendencies for most of his adult life before he underwent a transformation that made him symptom free in eighteen months. And not only did he heal his body but he discovered how to live joyfully. Author of I Don’t Dwell: How I Used Meditation, Mindfulness and Yoga to Reverse My Incurable Diseases, he now is a mindset mentor and abundant life strategy consultant.

Avital: Would you share your story, your experiences before and after your healing?

This is an excerpt from an interview for the book Healing Happens: Stories of Healing Against All Odds.

Nicole DeAvilla is a trail blazer educating and coaching a new generation of parents, change makers and yoga professionals. As a best-selling author, speaker and coach with over 35 years of experience, she is your go-to person for you, your family or your group. Her latest book is called The Two Minute Yoga Solution: Fast and Easy Stress and Back Pain Relief. I brought her into the Healing Happens book because she is so well respected as a successful yoga therapist at The Expanding Light Retreat Center which was founded by Swami Kriyananda, a direct disciple of the yoga guru Paramhansa Yogananda.

Avital: I’ve heard that one time when Swami Kriyananda was sick and could barely breathe somebody came to visit him. The people who were watching over Swami asserted, “No, you can’t come in. He’s sick.” But the person...

Mamie-Jean Lamley is a powerful businesswoman who knows how to maintain an inner sense of calm and joy. She runs a training and coaching business called Empowerment On Fire, and heads a spiritual business called Mandala Mystics: The Window to Your Soul. You can also find her with a big smile on her face, working at large events hosted by Success Resources, a leading global transformation and education company.

This interview is an excerpt from the book Healing Happens: Stories of Healing Against All Odds.

Mamie: The day I was told that I had cancer, I was actually up on stage, doing what I love doing: training. I was leading a course called, "Think Like a Leader" when my assistant picked up my cellphone to take a call from my doctor. He told her, "We've been trying to reach Mamie, but she hasn't been returning our calls, and this is critical. We need to talk to her right away." My assistant asked if...

Brooke: I was just finishing up my last rotation in medical school when I met weight-loss expert and master trainer Thomas Tadlock, the most incredible human I’d ever encountered—gorgeous and also funny, caring, and brilliant. I didn’t believe in soulmates until I met him.

We fell in love fast, and within a month he was talking marriage, which was awesome, but then I had to bring up my illness. I had to tell him I wasn’t going to live to a very old age, I could never have children, and he was going to end up taking care of me before I die, as I would become handicapped from joint problems and other disabilities. He paused for a moment then said, “I’d rather have a short life with you than a lifetime with anybody else.” I replied, “Okay, let’s get married!” I...

Brooke: After each chemotherapy treatment, at least a week would pass before I could do anything except read ahead in my textbooks, which helped me stop focusing on what was happening to my body. I went from nerd to über-nerd, because I knew every answer in class. Ultimately I graduated in the top ten of my high school class and received a scholarship to my first-choice college: Carnegie Mellon University.

My last chemotherapy treatment was exactly one week before starting college, and by then the lupus had gone into remission, which was like a rebirth. Still, even in remission I had to be careful to avoid sunlight, get enough sleep, and avoid stress or I would get achy joints, migraines, or a rash. I was very careful; did really well in college; and stayed in remission those four years. My blood tests still showed that I...

This is an excerpt from an interview for the book Healing Happens: Stories of Healing Against All Odds.

Avital: Hello. Welcome. We have Dr. Brooke Goldner with us. She is the best-selling author of Goodbye Lupus and a board certified medical doctor. She's the founder of VeganMedicalDoctor.com and creator of the hyper-nourishing healing protocol for lupus recovery.

Dr. Brooke Goldner, would you tell the story of how you began havinghealth issues in childhood and what healed you.

Brooke: My story began when I was sixteen years old. I was a normal, nerdy kid enjoying my little group of friends, but weird things started to happen. I began having arthritis in different parts of my body, which is not typical of kids that age, and I couldn’t figure out why. I had a passing thought maybe it was from playing volleyball, but then I reminded myself that I mostly sat bench for volleyball, so that wasn’t a good explanation. At the same time, I...

Bernie: Eight years later my wife had an abnormal mammogram and had cancer. I justthought, “Okay. We’ll take it one day at a time. I’m not going to worry what’s going to happen next year, five years from now.”

And even some of the treatment she was put on, I stopped it because with her MS and fatigue was making her even more tired and feeling worse. Again, see, I wasn’t worried about—“Well is it more likely a cancer will come back then?”

“What are you doing? How can you…,” some of her doctors would say to me. “Hey, don’t you know what you’re giving her is no good? She’s on hormones and other things to keep her as young and healthy as possible.”